Harvey Pekar, author for 34 years of American Splendor, died today at the age of 70. Thanks to pioneers like Pekar, what were once comic books are now “graphic novels.”
A poignant little clip from the 2003 movie, American Splendor, after the jump.
On this date Mazo de la Roche died (1879-1961).
Frye in “English Canadian Literature, 1929-1954”:
The Canadian novelist who is perhaps best known outside Canada is Mazo de la Roche, whose long “Jalna” series of stories began in 1927. The formidable familiy with which these books deal is well representative of the colonial phase of Canadian development, and of the ability of well-to-do families during that phase to live apart from, and almost in defiance of, the real life of the nation around them. (CW 12, 248)
In “View of Canada”:
And so we developed that curious streak of anxiety that distinguishes us from other North Americans. Which we kept trying to sweep under the carpet . . . In the popular Jalna books, Mazo de la Roche manages to make life in Canada seem a pastoral idyll. The Whiteoaks are a British county family transplanted to the colonies. (ibid., 470)